When ‘The Vanishing of Ethan Carter’ game drops, All Of Your Time Will Vanish, Too

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The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

I am a big pussy. When it comes to horror, I traditionally hate the audio-visual manipulation that comes with being scared. I don’t want the shock moments that come around every corner: the soundtrack jolts, the face in the mirror — you know the tricks because you’ve seen them all a million times.

Consequently, I don’t dig on horror video games that much either…because too many of them are like 20-hour long horror movies and I don’t want to spend that much of my life on edge.

Enter The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, a game that could give a shit about making you jump but is obsessed with making you feel…dread, unease, despair. As described by the developer, The Astronauts:

You play the game as Paul Prospero, an occult-minded detective who receives a disturbing letter from Ethan Carter. Realizing the boy is in grave danger, Paul arrives at Ethan’s home of Red Creek Valley, where things turn out to be even worse than he imagined. Ethan has vanished in the wake of a brutal murder, which Paul quickly discerns might not be the only local murder worth looking into. Inspired by the weird fiction (and other tales of the macabre) from the early twentieth century, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter aims to significantly evolve immersive storytelling in games.

There’s nothing to kill, no ammunition to hoard, no monsters to evade — just a world to explore using a set of brilliant, unique game mechanics.